Chapter 38
Rell
Rell stared at the dying embers. Sleep wasn't happening. Not when his mind kept circling back to words that had no business hitting him this hard.
I hardly even remember it. I wasn't there.
The way she'd said it—that hollow tone, like she was talking about someone else entirely—made him want to put his fist through something. Preferably someone's face.
Which was stupid. This kind of protective rage? That was for family. For Violette, maybe. Not for clients who'd hired him to get them from point A to point B.
But every time he tried to shove the feeling down, it crawled right back up his throat.
Elora shifted beside him, unconsciously pressing closer until her head found his shoulder. Her breathing was soft, even. No nightmares tonight, no jerking awake with terror carved into her features.
First time for everything.
Her hand rested against his chest, fingers curled loosely in his shirt. He could feel her pulse through her fingertips—steady, calm. Trusting.
Fuck.
This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd been with women before—plenty of them. Had his share of attractions, brief connections that burned hot and faded fast. That was the smart way to do it. Clean. Simple. No complications.
But this? This felt like something else entirely, and he didn't like not understanding it.
Maybe it was the way she'd kissed him—not with practiced seduction, but with that trembling uncertainty that said she was choosing him despite every instinct telling her to run. Maybe it was the purring thing, which was both ridiculous and... well, he wasn't going to examine that too closely.
Or maybe it was the fact that someone had hurt her badly enough to leave her floating outside her own body, and he couldn't stop his mind from cataloging exactly how many ways he could make them pay for it.
Was it someone at the Institute? That son-of-a-bitch Symond?
He'd seen the way they looked at each other—all that history, all that venom. Or maybe it was Headmaster Thorn. She’d mentioned him a few times during their journey, how he experimented on her.
The details were vague but he at least knew the man thought he could do as he pleased with her body.
Rell's jaw twitched. Whoever it was, they were living on borrowed time.
Professional distance, Lockwood.
Right. Because that was working so well for him.
His fingers moved without permission, ghosting over her hair. She didn't stir, lost in whatever dream had finally granted her peace. Everything about her was a puzzle with pieces that didn't quite fit together.
Escaped ward. Shapeshifter. Alchemist. Survivor.
And now, apparently, the one person who could make him forget why he kept everyone at arm's length.
He'd built his reputation on being precise. A blade in the dark, efficient and detached. Emotions were liabilities. Connections were weaknesses. He'd learned that lesson young and learned it well.
But Elora made him want to throw all of that out the window and do something stupid. Like hunt down whoever had put that haunted look in her eyes. Like promise her things he had no business promising. Like stay instead of walking away when this job was done.
What the hell is wrong with you?
A wolf howled somewhere in the distance. Elora didn't even twitch. Whatever usually plagued her sleep had finally released its grip, leaving her curled against him like she belonged there.
Which was dangerous thinking.
She mumbled something soft and incoherent, her fingers tightening briefly in his shirt. His chest did something complicated in response—a twist of warmth and possession that he definitely wasn't ready to name.
I want you to stay. Here. With me.
The memory hit him harder than it should have. Not just the words, but the way she'd said them. Like she was asking for something she'd never been allowed to want before.
And he'd said yes without thinking. Not because it was smart, but because the alternative—leaving her to face the dark alone—felt impossible.
Shit.
This was new territory. Uncharted and potentially catastrophic. The smart play was to get her to Kilfaire, and walk away before this... whatever this was... got any more complicated.
But as he lay there in the dying firelight, watching her sleep peacefully for what might be the first time in months, Rell found himself not particularly interested in the smart play.
He stared at the stars for a long time. Counted breaths, cataloged threats, tried not to wonder what the fuck tomorrow would bring.
Elora’s worn brown cloak slipped from her shoulder, leaving her arm exposed to the cool night air. Rell reached over and tugged it back into place, his movements careful not to wake her.
The fabric caught on his finger—a tear near the edge. Nothing unusual about that. The thing was practically falling apart, frayed and patched in a dozen places. But something about the shape of this particular rip made him pause.
Familiar.
He frowned, studying the cloak more closely in the dying firelight.
Now that he was actually looking at it—really looking—it was too small for her.
The hem barely reached her thighs when she stood, more like a child's cloak than something meant for a grown woman.
She never took the damn thing off, either.
Slept in it, traveled in it, clutched it around herself like armor.
The tear was triangular, jagged at the edges like it had been caught on something sharp. Like iron bars.
Rell's blood went cold.
No.
He was losing his mind. Had to be. The stress of the job, the lack of sleep, the way Elora had crawled under his skin—it was making him see connections that didn't exist.
But his fingers traced the torn edge anyway, and his memory supplied the rest: Kira.
That's what she'd told him her name was.
Nine years old, maybe ten, with the same stubborn chin Elora had when she was being difficult.
He remembered her from before—standing up to some village brat twice her size, chin lifted high, eyes blazing with pure defiance.
She'd been sunshine in that grim little village.
All joy and fire and unbreakable spirit.
Until the Snatchers took that away.
A cramped cage, a little girl with dark hair who could barely keep her eyes open. Drugged. Shivering. Looking at him with pupils too wide, fighting to stay conscious. He'd given her his cloak—his only one—through the bars, told her he'd save her, promised he'd come back for her.
He'd never came back.
The Snatchers had left him for dead, and by the time he'd crawled out of that ditch, they were gone.
Vanished into the woods to collect more cargo.
He'd searched for weeks, months, following cold trails and dead-end leads until the truth settled in his gut like poison.
She was gone. Lost to the same machine that devoured children and spat out nothing but bones and nightmares.
You're being an idiot.
Thousands of children had brown cloaks. Hundreds had been taken by the Snatchers over the years. The odds of Elora being that same terrified girl were astronomical. Impossible.
Except.
Except she'd known exactly what the Snatchers were when he'd mentioned them back in Ravenpoint. Had gone pale as death, like the name itself was a blade pressed to her throat. And when she'd talked about being sold to them, about nearly dying before Tehvan found her...
Fuck.
His hand stilled on the fabric. If Elora was Kira—if he'd spent the last week protecting the same girl he'd failed to save all those years ago—then what did that make him? Lucky? Cursed? Given a second chance he sure as hell didn't deserve?
She shifted in her sleep, pressing closer, and he forced himself to breathe. It didn't matter. Couldn't matter. Even if she was Kira, even if fate had decided to play the cruelest joke imaginable, it changed nothing about their situation.
Get her to Kilfaire. Keep her alive. Complete the job.
But his fingers still traced that familiar tear. Rell found himself hoping—against all logic, against every lesson he'd learned about the world—that he was wrong.
But what if you're not?
She obviously didn't remember him—no surprise there. The Snatchers had their methods. Memory potions. Turn the merchandise into a "clean slate" for the buyers. Wipe away everything that made them them and leave behind empty vessels ready to be filled with whatever their new owners wanted.
He'd heard the bastards talking about it, laughing about it, like erasing a child's entire existence was just another part of the business.
Elora wouldn't remember. But she could.
Rell wasn't well-versed in alchemy—left that shit to people who had the patience for measuring and mixing. But The Hive used memory potions regularly enough. Severance serums, recall enhancers, neural scramblers. If there were potions to steal memories, there had to be ways to bring them back.
But what would knowing change?
The question carved through him with surgical precision.
Would it make him feel less like a complete failure?
Less haunted by the ghost of a nine-year-old girl with sunshine in her eyes and defiance in her voice?
Would it wash away the years of wondering, the sleepless nights spent cataloging every way he could have done things differently?
Kira's ghost had followed him almost as relentlessly as his sister's.
At least with his sister, he'd gotten answers, eventually.
Closure, if you could call watching someone you loved choose their cage over freedom closure.
But Kira? She'd just... vanished. Another casualty of his incompetence, another name on the list of people he'd failed to save.
If Elora was Kira, if she'd clawed her way out of that hell and somehow ended up here, trusting him with her sleep, her safety, her first real choice—
You need to know.
The certainty settled in his chest like an arrow finding its mark. Not want. Need. Because nine years of wondering was nine years too many, and because the alternative—spending the rest of his life seeing Kira's ghost—would drive him insane.